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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 5/28/26

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Asher

12:30

Do you think Jackson holidays superstar potential is gone?

Dan Szymborski

12:30

Not completely.i I mean he's just 22 still

Asher

12:30

What do you expect from Skubal once he returns from injury, do you see him struggling at all or coming back to cy young from?

Dan Szymborski

12:30

I think you might see normal performance, just not at his absolute best

12:31

I can't imagine they'll bring him back without confidence, and I doubt Skubal has interest in coming back if he isn't ready to be Skubal

boggspuckett

12:31

Is the current Keibert Ruiz for real, or is this just a SSS that will fade in short order?

Dan Szymborski

12:31

I'm skeptical; I've been burned before!

Bidding aDoo

12:32

I seem to remember Zips liking this Charles McAdoo kid. Do you think he’s ready to be a regular for the Jays?

Dan Szymborski

12:32

ZiPS think he's a reasonable role player in the majors, and still is about there

RMR

12:32

Matt McLain. Low BABIP hiding a solid bounce back or just the shape of what a bad hitter looks like?

Dan Szymborski

12:32

I still think he'll work out, but I might be the last one!

Galahad

12:33

I understand that teams have non-public fielding metrics that they trust more than the public ones. Are these similar for each team, or do they employ widely dissimilar models for defense?

Dan Szymborski

12:33

It's...complicated.

I think fans overrate how different *metrics* are internally among teams

Like, a team has little motivation for a modified league-wide generalized WAR model

12:34

fans really sometimes believe that teams have this secret better WAR or something

but that kind of thing is a waste of teams' time

But teams have a lot of data about their *own* players tha tother teams have, that they can use in making internal decisions

Teams seek more actionable data more than anything

12:35

Whereas someone like me is more interested in the big picture

12:35

Is there an way to calculate the leaderboard for 'balls that would have gone out of at least 1 ballpark'? I'm curious to see if there are any surprises; like, for example, is there a guy who's really great at hitting fly balls right down the RF line who tragically isn't on the red sox?

Dan Szymborski

12:35

On statcast search somewhere? I don't usually liook at that number

simply because there's more to a park than the dimensions

InsertWittyNameHere

12:35

Re: fanbases overrating - this is why they're sitting in the seats and not the executive box.

Dan Szymborski

12:36

The thing is, a typical 1995 front office COULD have been replaced by competent fans

Baseball Learner

12:36

Looking at your great article today, I am curious on your input on one of two possibilities: 1) the Brewers are fast to find and ride the hot hands based on internal data of who is making sustainable changes 2) the Brewers are intentionally acquiring/developing/utilizing players in ways that Zips under predicts performance

Dan Szymborski

12:36

I think 1 - I think the Brewers are really good at tracking sustainable change of their own players

ZiPS isn't really underpredicting performance

Guest

12:36

I feel like Kade especially with a K is not that common? Right way for a pitcher to spell it though.

Baseball Learner

12:37

A statistical hypothesis: the higher percentage of a team's scoring is power-based, the more variable their scoring will be per game or series of games. Have you seen or done any research that would confirm/disprove this suggestion?

Dan Szymborski

12:37

It's the opposite

12:38

https://twitter.com/DSzymborski/status/1980429290366988734

12:39

when it comes down to it, while homers are scattered big events, a powerful team DOES consistently score with homers

because hitting homers is a more consistent, repeatable skill than chaining singles

12:40

It's also likely why home run dependent teams slightly *overperform* in the playoffs, where pitching quality is higher

12:41

Does pulling the infield in work? It seems like it only protects against hard hit grounders. Pulling all the way to the grass just seems unnecessary